In a typical cellular radio system, wireless terminals (also referred to as user equipment unit nodes, UEs, and/or mobile stations) communicate via a radio access network (RAN) with one or more core networks. The RAN covers a geographical area which is divided into cell areas, with each cell area being served by a radio base station (also referred to as a RAN node, a “NodeB”, and/or enhanced NodeB “eNodeB”). A cell area is a geographical area where radio coverage is provided by the base station equipment at a base station site. The base stations communicate through radio communication channels with UEs within range of the base stations.
In cellular radio systems, charging systems may be used to control billing and/or access for wireless terminals communicating with the RAN based on respective subscriptions/plans for the wireless terminals. With a billing plan for a wireless terminal, for example, the charging system may maintain a balance based on consumption of communication services by the wireless terminal, and periodic bills for the wireless terminal may be based on the consumption of communication services as determined using the balance. If a bill is not paid within an allowed time, the charging system may block access of the respective wireless terminal to the RAN. With a pre-paid plan for a wireless terminal, the charging system may deduct from a pre-paid balance for a wireless terminal, and the charging system may block access of the wireless terminal to the RAN if the pre-paid balance is not maintained at a sufficient level.
In current charging systems, sharing of a balance between two or more wireless terminals may need to be limited to configurations that are initially set up as a part of the basic subscriptions. Moreover, shared balances may be limited to two levels, and future expansion of current balancing sharing configurations beyond two levels may be limited. Existing shared balance configurations, for example, may be provided primarily to handle shared funding situations for involved subscribers, but may not be configured to support aggregation of consumption. Hierarchies in billing and charging may be configured as relations between subscribers or customers thereby potentially limiting possibilities to use hierarchies for functions such as aggregation of usage or charging a lower level subscriber or customer.
Existing charging systems and methods may thus fail to provide sufficient flexibility to address changing customer demands.